As the clocks moved forward to British Summer Time it was good to know that maybe the dull and dark evenings were over for another year and summer was on the way. Also helping to alleviate the winter gloom Andy Parsons, a mainstay of BBC2’s ever popular ‘Mock the Week’ was in the ancient capital of Scotland last night as part of his nationwide tour ‘Gruntled’.
Parsons is an artist that I had seen on TV for ever it seems but this was the first time I had seen him live.So along with around 600 other souls I headed for the Alhambra with anticipation.
Now I don’t think even at the wildest stretch of the imagination anyone could describe him as a dynamic stand-up. No posturing, pacing strutting for him, oh no. What he does is deliver a quality set of fairly cerebral, often political but always well crafted material in him own inimitable style. But this is obviously a style that has mass appeal.
Of course given the world’s current state of affairs with all that is going on both internally and externally in politics Parsons is absolutely spoiled for choice for subject matter and he does major on this topic, Coalition government, particularity George Osbourne and of course Nick and David and bankers are targeted in his set, however not exclusively. He has a fair amount of personal stuff to expound on too, hospital visits, press comments on his appearance and a story of his early comedy career all have their place during the performance.
To a lot of people his enlightening of the Mock the Week phenomena was perhaps the highlight and certain insights most revealing of the behind the scenes and before the edit process. Certainly laughs were never in short supply throughout.He does chat briefly with his front row identifying people for callback material and is rewarded with a couple or so characters who give him a chance to talk about this gig in future ones with a couple of the antics.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining and professional show delivered by a performer at the top of his game. He said he hopes to return and I certainly do hope he does. I cannot wait to see how his newly invented word, waterfest, gets worked into his material.
Parson continues on tour for a few weeks yet. The dates for these gigs can be found at www.andyparsons.co.uk > Also for the wide variety of entertainment at Dunfermline’s Alhambra then their website is www.alhambradunfermline.com
Reviewed by Geoff